WELCOMING SHABBAT

Shabbat is more than a day of refraining from worldly activity.

When experienced to its spiritual fullest, its holiness enlightens all other days of the week.

We invite you to enhance your Shabbat with these words of Torah.

 

Ki Tetze – Davar Torah based on the Or HaChaim

Ki Tetze – Davar Torah based on the Or HaChaim

Or HaChaim (Rabbi Haim Ben Attar)
September 9, 2022

Ki Teze la’milchama al oivecha, u’netano Hashem Elokecha b’yadecha vshavita shivyo

when you will go out to war against your enemies, and hashem, your God, will deliver him into your hand, and you will capture his captivity”

(Devarim 21:10)

 

The Or Hachaim (Rabbi Haim Ben Attar) explains:

Ki Tetze la’milchama al oivecha” – If you go out to war against (literally on/upon) your enemies” – is related to the war against our yetzer ha’rah (evil inclination) rather than an actual physical war.

 

Every soul descends from the upper world and becomes enclothed into a body in this physical world. This descent is for the explicit purpose of fighting against the yetzer hara. Each person is faced with a yetzer hara specific to him. His fight against it is his personal task in the overall tikkun olam (repair of the world).

 

Why is this fight called a “milchama“, a war? Because this kind of war against yetzer hara requires a tremendous amount of strength.

 

What is the meaning behind “al oivecha – on (or upon) your enemy” rather than “neged -against” your enemy? The war against the yetzer hara is not a temporary war but an ongoing, permanent war. If you don’t constantly rise up to combat him, he will prevail over you, chas v’shalom (Heaven forbid).